Bye bye doggie.
I’ve come pretty close to this, and I’ve lived in some god-awful places so that I could keep my critters. I also would not be above smuggling my animals in, knowing I could be evicted. It might at least buy time.
I would not send my animals to a shelter, I would do my damnedest to rehome them, or find a rescue that would take them in. If all else failed, we’d be living in a tent somewhere, cats and dogs both.
Cats are indeed more difficult to place, but I take issue with the fact that they are less capable of becoming ‘family’ than dogs. My cats are dear friends and are my responsibility. If for some awful reason a kill shelter really was the only option, and I was told that they probably would be put down in a few days, I’d find a way to have them euthanized with me there, in a place that they were comfortable and happy. Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but I don’t want my critters to be abandoned with strangers and spend their last days frightened.
+1
She gets really agitated in any kind of cage, and she pines for her family. How could I do that to her? I am her family, I take care of her, I am her superhuman: the strongest in the whole world, the fiercest protector, the best cuddler, the silliest game player, miracle food dispenser. How could I ever let her down, after all she has done for me? She is my family.
We’ll be under the bridge together. Don’t worry about me, I won’t be cold as long as I have Jana.
I hope you people do realize that if you die somewhere together your dog will eat you.
I hope my dog realizes if we’re ever trapped in a Donner Party situation I’ll eventually eat him. 
Fair enough trade.
I don’t have kids, never wanted kids, and most likely now can’t even have kids. This is an easy question to answer.
It would be a cold day in hell before I’d give up any of my pets to a shelter for an apartment.
I’d live out of my car, couch-surf, camp out in a tent, whatever it took to keep my dog and cats with me. They’re part of me. They’re not expendible nor disposable.
This steps outside the hypothetical, but I didn’t get a dog until my financial situation was secure enough to assure that I’d be able to keep him indefinitely. In other words, keeping my dog is non-negotiable barring international travel (and I have SEVERAL stable volunteers to take him in that instance). Being responsible for a pet (or a child, for that matter) means weaving that safety net for them. If you cannot assure that your pet is safe, fed, and healthy under practically any circumstance, then don’t get a pet for keeps. Volunteer to foster animals instead–it’s a fine and honorable calling.
Bitey the Chinese Water Dragon would be off to the lizard shelter.
This thread, like the one in GD about whether you’d rescue your dog or a human who was a total stranger to you, is about the relative value one places on pets v. people. This was an attempt to get at that distinction (or non-distinction as the case may be) by putting it in a somewhat more realistic context. (And one I remember well from my days of going through rental ads and having to cross out the vast majority that said “no pets.”)
I put this thread in GD because the other one was in GD, and I’ll be damned if I can understand why they would belong in different fora.
If I died with any dogs around as pets, I wouldn’t t care if they ate me.
It just wouldn’t come to that.
I have too many friends who’d be willing to provide a temporary home to both me and any dogs, and if worse came to worse, I could guilt my brother into providing at least them with a little space. Considering that my cats (and my mom’s dog when I was living with my parents) gave me a reason to continue living while I was in the bleakest, most painful pit of depression, I am loathe to surrender them to any situation where they might suffer.
I perceived it as a thread about pets more than dogs. I don’t see a huge difference between the two animals; I think they’re both entitled to some moral consideration, but not as much as humans in general, and much less than a father owes his child.
My #1 responsibility is to my daughter. “Sorry PandaKid, I know it’s 30 degrees tonight and you’ve got bronchitis and we could easily afford a non-pet apartment but …”
Fuck that!
I’d cry, but the dog would have to go.
Not having ever had kids, or wanted them for that matter, my choices are much easier.
My current dog spent four days locked in an apartment with no food and my neighbor’s dead body, and there wasn’t a tooth mark on the corpse. I have no doubt Max would have starved first.
Our cats, on the other hand, would probably be munching on us before we were room temperature.
I don’t actually have a dog atm, but thinking back to ones I have had - this situation only makes sense if I have no friends or family. In that case, I suppose the dog is my only friend, and family too. I go homeless.
I’m somewhat doubtful of my dog eating my dead body too. She indiscriminately laps up everything she can find, edible or not. When I cook, she tracks me round the kitchen with her eyes for anything I might drop. Whenever I’ve cut myself and blood drops on the floor, I’ve always been interested to see if she will touch that. She is perfectly happy with any other animal blood. Not mine though. She sniffs it and then looks at me.
So maybe she would eat my dead body, but only in the same situation that any human would: starvation. And she’s welcome to it, if I’m dead and she’s hungry. 
Well, I didn’t marry my husband before the first baby, so I guess the order is: Daughter, husband, son. My poor son. Last in line again.
So, evidently you have raised your kids with different values and I’m glad they work for you and your family. But my children *would not be reassured in the least *to know that I would choose homelessness-with-pet for the sake of making sure they know that they, my children, are truly not expendable any more than a 4-legged creature is. Because that’s what you’re saying, right? That otherwise I would be showing hypocrisy and hiding the fact that some “family members” are actually expendable?
My kids would be the complete opposite of reassured if I chose homelessness when there was an option for a roof over our heads that I turned down because it meant giving a pet away. They would be frightened for themselves and for my sanity, and probably wondering what other crazy-ass decision I was going to make next.
I would take the obvious solution of taking a no-pet apartment and sneaking my pets inside. I’d take extra care to keep them quiet and put down extra rugs to mute as much noise as possible and just stay there until a pet-friendly place opened up. I’ve actually done this more than once and even when they know we have animals no apartment has ever pushed us to get rid of the animals or fined us or anything.
Don’t be so sure. It just takes longer.
Yes I have seen it personally.